New Delhi: Conversion to Christianity was the main objective behind Mother Teresa’s service to the poor, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat said Monday February 23rd.

“Mother Teresa’s service would have been good. But it used to have one objective, to convert the person, who was being served, into a Christian,” he said while speaking at a function organised by NGO Apna Ghar near here.

“The question is not about conversion but if this (conversion) is done in the name of service, then that service gets devalued,” he said.

“But here (at the NGO), the objective is purely service of poor and helpless people,” added Bhagwat.

The RSS Chief was addressing a function in village Bajhera, near 8 kms from here, where he inaugurated ‘Mahila Sadan’ and ‘Sishu Bal Grah’ in the NGO for helpless women and children.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday criticised RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for his comments on Mother Teresa, saying she was a “noble soul” and should be spared.

“I worked wid Mother Teresa for a few months at Nirmal Hriday ashram in Kolkata. She was a noble soul. Pl spare her,” Kejriwal tweeted.

Bengaluru: Nuns, priests and archbishops chanted Hail Mary on the streets of Bengaluru on Friday, as thousands of Christians took out a procession in the city against the recent attacks on churches in Delhi.

The rally began at the St. John’s College of Nursing just off the busy Hosur Road and saw the protesters marching, carrying banners.

Participants spoke of the need to be allowed to practice their religion with freedom and called for attacks on churches to stop.

The Archbishop of Bengaluru, Rev Bernard Moras, along with other Archbishops from around the country brought up the rear of the procession.

“Hardly a day has passed off in recent months without reports of attacks on Christians, Churches and Christian institutions from across the nation,” said a statement by the archbishops.

“The police manhandling of peaceful gathering of even women, children, nuns and priests at the gate of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in the heart of New Delhi on February 5, 2015 raises questions whether constitutional guarantees are not applicable to the Christian community,” the statement added.

Yesterday, a large number of policemen cracked down on a protest in Delhi against attacks on churches, and dragged activists, including priests, into buses.

The protest outside the Sacred Heart cathedral in the heart of the city was “unlawful”, said the police, who were seen pulling women and even children, leaving bags and shoes scattered on the road.

Christian groups had organized a silent march to highlight what they called lack of serious action in recent attacks on churches. They said they would march to Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s residence.

There have been five attacks on churches since December. Some Christian groups suspect a pattern of orchestrated attacks, and say the police are undermining them.

New Delhi: Under attack for denial of visa to two Vatican officials, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today promised to examine the issue and take necessary action.

This was conveyed by Singh to a delegation of Christian leaders who called on him at his North Block office here.

“The Home Minister told the delegation that he would ask the concerned officials to give a report as to why the visa was denied to the Vatician officials,” a Home Ministry official said.

The two Vatican officials, who were to address the 27th national assembly of the ongoing Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) in Bengaluru, have been denied visas.

The decision to issue or deny visa is taken taken by the Foreigners’ Division of the Home Ministry. So far, there is no official communication from the Home Ministry as to why the visa was denied to them.

CCBI deputy secretary general Stephen Alathara claimed that the duo had applied for visas in December 2014 and were awaiting response from the Indian government.

However, on the travel day they were informed that their visa applications had been rejected due to technical reasons.

Vatican officials were to arrive in Bengaluru on Tuesday for the conference between February 3 and 9. It is being attended by 140 bishops from different parts of the country.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, and Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, president of the Pontifical Mission Societies and Adjunct Secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, were key speakers at the conference on the ‘Liturgy and Life’ session. The CCBI now plans to hold the session through video conferencing.

Bengaluru: The Catholic church today alleged that two key Vatican officials who were to address the 27th national assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) in Bengaluru which began on February 3 had been denied visa.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, CCBI president, said the 140 bishops from across the world are attending the assembly that commenced yesterday.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, President of Pontifical Mission Societies and Adjunct Secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, were key resource persons for the week-long conference.

CCBI is now planning to hold the session in which the two officials were scheduled to participate through video conferencing.

Though the two officials had applied for visa in mid-December, their applications were kept pending till the last minute and rejected, a CCBI statement said.

Sources claimed that even after the intervention by Vatican’s Secretary of State office the visa applications were kept pending.

Patna: A group of Bajrang Dal activists Sunday attacked and vandalized the Christian Bhawan (building) at a Bihar town, police said.

The incident created panic among the small Christian community, who demanded police protection for their security in Jehanabad town of the same district, 52km from Patna.

“Some Bajrang Dal activists attacked and vandalized the Christian Bhawan at Jehanabad town,” a district police official said.

They were apparently protesting against the alleged conversion of poor Hindus by Christians.

They also blocked National Highway 83 connecting state capital Patna to Gaya district.

Later, however, the accusation of conversion was proved baseless.

According to police, the activists attacked the building at Jehanabad because the Christian priest at the bhawan had allegedly lured poor Hindus into converting. The latter told the police that some people had informed them that Christians had been practising conversion at the bhawan.

“The fact was that local Christian residents used to gather at the bhawan for weekly prayers as well as to socialise with each other. There was no evidence of conversion,” police officials said.

In the last one-and-half months, more than 200 poor Hindus, mostly Mahadalits, embraced Christianity across the state.

The right-wing Hindu organisations – RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal – have alleged that the poor Hindus were lured into conversion.

Lucknow: After the Sangh Parivar’s ‘Ghar Wapsi’ flop show, a few Hindu communities in Uttar Pradesh, especially from deprived castes, are now threatening the communal forces and authorities that they would convert en masse to Christianity and Islam if their demands were not fulfilled.

At least two incidents had been reported from different places in the North Indian state, where some communities threatened “mass conversion” to try to “force” authorities to meet their various demands which, in one case, was their inclusion in the list of scheduled castes (SC) so that they could get job reservation.

It began with the demand from the “Dhangarhs” (a community of herders) in Agra to issue them certificates declaring them as members of the SC in order to enable them to avail job reservation.

The community members threatened that they would undergo “mass conversion” and become Christians if their demand was not met. The community leaders have given the government a month’s time to meet their demand.

Similarly, a few days back, a group of people from “Valmiki” community also threatened to convert “en masse” to Islam after they were allegedly not allowed to undertake a “shobhayatra” (procession) and pay obeisance at a “Valmiki temple” at Baghpat.

About 50 “Valmikis” who live near the temple at Jamalpur Goma village in Baghpat district, about 600 km from here, alleged that they had not been allowed to worship at the temple and undertake the annual procession by the priest.

The priest Mahant Lakshyadevananda, however, claimed that he never prevented the “Valmikis” from praying at the temple. “It is basically a ploy to grab the land property that belonged to the temple. They (Valmikis) are threatening to convert to pressurize the authorities,” he claimed.

Saffron groups have held meetings with the “Valmikis” in a bid to persuade them not to “convert”. The “Valmikis” have set a deadline of January 26 for the administration to meet their demand.

Thiruvananthapuram: As Kerala Police began a probe into reports of 35 people in two districts converting to Hinduism, two families Monday said they did it on their own and not under any pressure.

The families of Babu and Joy, siblings from Cheppad in Alappuzha district, told the media that in official records they were classified as Christian Cheremars, but they had been practising Hinduism right from childhood.

They said that despite being classified as Christian Cheremars, they were not getting any reservation benefits.

Hence, they decided on their own to convert to Hinduism to enjoy the benefits.

They also said they had approached the local leadership of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and it was they who made arrangements for their conversion rituals.

A total of 35 people from Alappuzha and Kollam districts had Sunday converted to Hinduism, following which state Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala had ordered a probe.

Additional Director General of Police A. Hemachandran has been asked to conduct a detailed probe and submit a report, Chennithala’s office told IANS.

“He has constituted a team of officials and they are trying to find if there was any forced conversion. The report is awaited,” the office said.

The VHP leadership Monday continued to maintain that there was no attempt on their part to woo people to convert to Hinduism.

Fr. Paul Thelekkat, spokesperson of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church, told IANS that there exists a problem in Kerala where reservation benefits are there for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Hindus and not for SC/ST Christians.

What happened Sunday was probably to enjoy those benefits, he said.

“Moreover, the Bharatiya Janata Party, through this could look to polarisation of Hindu votes,” Thelekkat said.

New Delhi: Dharm Jagran Manch leader Rajeshwar Singh, of the Aligarh Christmas conversion programme fame, has raked up a new controversy with a fresh dose of vitriol.

Rajeshwar Singh has said that they plan to root out Christianity and Islam from India by December 31, 2021, adding that Christians and Muslims essentially have no right to live in the country.

“India’s inner voice has spoken. Just wait and watch. 31 December 2021 is the last for Christianity and Islam in this country. We will finish Christianity and Islam in this country by 31 December 2021. This is our aim,” Rajeshwar said.

Such comments are not new to the saffron leader, and he has been in the news for voicing similar views earlier as well.

His organisation had planned a mass conversion programme in Aligarh on Christmas. After widespread outrage over it, the future of the plan remains undecided.